Texas

Coming into the season many had the Texas Rangers among the top World Series contenders.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Rangers exit the All-Star break with the League’s second best record, just a half game behind the surging Yankees.

Amazingly, this team still has a lot of room to improve down the stretch as they look to get healthy and to get Josh Hamilton closer to the form he showed in May.

Also looking to improve his form is starter Derek Holland. He essentially had the month of June off and looked sharper in his last start before the break.

Starter Kevin Millwood has been better than expected

He also should be happy to see the Mariners, the team that he has the most wins and strikeouts against in his young career.

That is if he can get his last outing against the M’s out of his system. On May 5 he gave up 8 runs in less than 2 innings at Safeco.

Seattle

Nothing has gone right for Seattle this season with the Mariners owning the worst record in the AL. Surprisingly this team is worse at home than on the road but they have held their own against the Rangers winning 5 of 10 against the top club in their division.

Amazingly, in their last two games against Texas the Mariners have scored 31 runs.

That is usually a two week total for this light hitting squad.

Starter Kevin Millwood has been better than expected for the Mariners posting a solid 3.69 ERA for the season.

Unfortunately the team has not been able to pick him up often as the M’s are still just 6-10 in his starts. 2 of those wins are against Texas with the team overall 2-1 with the veteran starting against a former team.

It is hard to predict what you are going to get from Millwood but this might be a nice value spot to play Seattle.